You would think that I man in his early 30's who has been reading comics for close to 30 years would know a little about everything "comic". Especially of a series that not only spawned 7 movies and 3 seasons of TV, but several re-releases and cover art by none other than Frank Miller. You would think it, because I would. The sad thing is I'm "that guy". How many out there right now are saying, "What?!? You just discovered a comic classic such as Lone Wolf and Cub?"? I've been saying the exact thing to myself for the past couple of weeks now. I do have a little shame. Just a tad.
It all started with my recently developed taste for Japanese cinema, especially of the 70's. I've always been a fan of Godzilla but I recently got a hold of Pinky Violence movies and I was sold. By recent, I mean close to a year ago. Since then, I have moved on to The Street Fighter with Sonny Chiba. That led to more movies of the Pinku genre and Yakuza trash. Within all that, I discovered Ogami Itto and Diagoro.
And that's when the love affair started.
At this point, I have seen 3 movies and 3 episodes of the series. Both ran at around the same time in Japan. I have read that people think that the series is truer to the real storyline. Unfortunately, I haven't read the manga yet, but that will all change by the end of the weekend. Thus far, I love both the movies and TV show, but I like the movies better for the fighting and brutality. I also think the camera shots are super-beautiful. And Ogami Itto tend s to massacre an entire army at the end of each movie, something not seen in the tv show. But you also have to think about budget. A television show is obviously going to have a lower budget. The television show does do the story justice within a 45 minute period though. I've seen the same story told twice already and both were impressive. Yeah, there wasn't nearly as much gore but it was still worthy of a gold star. The best part about the television show is that I'm going to be watching it far after I'm done with the movies. Thankfully, I have plenty of evenings, seeing as that I'm a lonely, single fuck who spends his nights between wasted at the bar and watching obscure movies in isolation. But enough about my pathetic life, I have an episode to watch before bed.
This is probably not going to be my last blog on the Subject of Lone Wolf and Cub. Once a person develops such a torrid love affair, they want nothing more than to tell the world
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Don't sweat it, dude. I caught on the manga real late, too, but only because I didn't buy them when they first sold and now I can't seem to find them outside of Ebay... and I have no excuse for not buying them there. I do love the movies, though.
ReplyDeletePink Eiga recently sent me a promo kit with a couple of their early releases in it. If you like the pinky stuff, you should probably catch up with their weirdo flick, S&M Hunter. I reviewed it a little while back at my site. It's from the 80's but has a distinctly nippon eiga feel from the 70's. It's a fucking strange flick.
I've tried getting into the later pinky stuff, but it's not the same as the Toei 70's. I find huge differences that make modern pinky unappealing, like acting and production quality. I'll look into S&M Hunter though
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